Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI)

Recipients

Felina Cordova-Marks, Assistant Professor, Health Promotion Sciences, Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health; Jennifer Erdrich, Assistant Professor, Surgery, College of Medicine – Tucson

Abstract

American Indian/Alaska Natives (AI/AN) face greater disparities in breast cancer treatment outcomes than Non-Hispanic White Women. Historically, AI/AN females receiving medical care have been coerced and or forcibly treated with varying levels of consent occurring/not occurring. The goal of this project is to determine the cancer treatment decision making process, including the process for consenting to treatment (such as mastectomy), and overall treatment experience of Pascua Yaqui breast cancer patients, survivors, and the role that their caregivers play in the treatment decision making process (N=60). This project utilizes a Community Based Participatory Research and mixed-methods approach, including a survey and semi-structured interviews with participants. Outcomes include increasing the capacity of UA Indigenous student researchers, reports for the Pascua Tribe on how their breast cancer patients are being consented for cancer treatment, as well as the types of cancer treatment they are choosing, and developing a culturally responsive health promotion tool for Pascua Yaqui breast cancer survivors, patients, and their caregivers that will facilitate patient understanding of the consent process for cancer treatment and surgical cancer treatment.

Recipients

Anna Josephson, Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Na Zuo, Assistant Professor of Practice, Agricultural and Resource Economics, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Katherine Speirs, Assistant Specialist, Early Childhood/Childhood Development, Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Abstract

The proposed project investigates the dynamics of food insecurity on college campuses and, in particular, the heterogeneous effects among BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students. Food insecurity is an issue of racial equity. Through structural racism, marginalized individuals and families have dealt with poverty and food insecurity at a higher rate than non-Hispanic white individuals and families. Hispanic and BIPOC students begin their time at UA facing an increased likelihood of food insecurity - and are more likely to experience food insecurity as students. When students have trouble securing sufficient food, they have trouble completing their education. As Hispanic and BIPOC students already face lower rates of retention and graduation at UA, food insecurity is yet another hurdle which they must overcome in order to obtain their education. We seek to contribute to the Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) mission of the UA through the Project Aims presented in Box 1 of the proposal. We seek to understand the constraints in ensuring food security faced by students at the UA, to make recommendations to alleviate these constraints, and to quantify the return on investment to UA of alleviating these constraints for students.

Recipients

Jacqueline Barrios, Assistant Professor, Public and Applied Humanities, College of Humanities with collaborators: Ana Maria Alvarez, Founder and Director, Contra Tiempo Activist Dance Theater; Leigh-Anna Hidalgo, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, Yale University

Abstract

I propose to pilot a program for arts and activism residencies at UArizona, specifically within the Public and Applied (PAH) Humanities core curriculum, as part of a larger goal to cultivate QT BIPOC student access to humanities and arts fields. The “HSI-PAH Artist-in-Residence Program: Arts Praxis, Servingness & the Public Humanities” will bring two teaching artists to collaboratively design separate 3-week units as part of PAH 200, "Introduction to Applied and Public Humanities." This grant will fund teaching artist visits to Tucson where they will provide hands-on immersive instruction to students on methods drawn from their own practice, from choreographic labs to comic-book based graphic design. A larger public engagement for the wider UArizona community (artist talk, performance, showing or demo) will be planned as a part of the residencies, one of which will feature a showcase of student work from the project.

Recipients

Regina Deil-Amen, Professor, Educational Policy Studies and Practice, College of Education, Ashley Domínguez Lopez, Assistant Professor, Teaching Learning and Sociocultural Studies, College of Education; Julio Cammarota, Professor, Teaching Learning and Sociocultural Studies, College of Education; Amelia Kraehe, Associate Professor, School of Art, College of Fine Arts

Abstract

The proposed project advances and broadens a cross-disciplinary curriculum to provide students at two HSI universities –The University of Arizona (UArizona) and The University of Puerto Rico, Cayey (UPR, Cayey) with the critical and creative tools needed to understand how BIPOC students are affected by and respond to the crises around them. This project is made possible by the close collaboration between faculty within the Colleges of Education and Fine Arts and inter-institutional collaborations between UArizona and UPR, Cayey. Education and Cayey will offer (TLS 418/518 and INTD 4116) Participatory Action Research courses with the long term plan to expand to Fine Arts. While these universities share a federal designation as Hispanic-serving Institutions, each offers a distinct cultural and curricular context. Thus, lessons learned from implementing the Creative Resistance course sequence across two HSI institutions will be especially useful to other Hispanic and Minority Serving Institutions exploring experiential curricular and cross-disciplinary approaches to servingness. Students from each campus will work together on PAR projects addressing problems affecting BIPOC students within vastly different cultural contexts. These collaboratives represent vital student networks across contexts where they can support each other in their educational and community praxis and pursuit of graduate school.

Recipients

Daniel Martinez, Associate Professor, Sociology, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; David Garcia, Associate Professor, Health Promotion Sciences, Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health; Adriana Maldonado, Postdoctoral Research Associate I, Health Promotion Sciences, Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health

Abstract

Background: Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) play a crucial role in recruiting, retaining, and graduating Latinx students via the provision of social and academic support, culturally relevant coursework, and an environment of “servingness” that facilitates mentoring and training Latinx students and engaging them in culturally relevant research projects. One critical issue affecting many Latinx students and their families is blocked access to medical care, which is a social determinant of health that contributes to disparities evidenced in immigrant, ethnic minority, and low-income populations.

Methods: “Salud Sin Fronteras” expands existing qualitative research frameworks on healthcare barriers by employing a “life-course” approach to examine the associations between early life health experiences and medical and lay care seeking practices post-migration. To assess these relationships, our research team developed a novel quantitative survey instrument that is being administered to 300 Mexican-origin adults in southern Arizona.

Outcomes & Significance: Salud Sin Fronteras will train Latinx students in quantitative research skills, enhance and support racial and cultural ways of knowing, and help extend the HSI mission across the UArizona campus. Moreover, outcomes will expand our understanding of the binational implications of blocked medical care access that can inform health interventions designed to promote wellness and care access.

Recipients

Megan Carney, Associate Professor, School of Anthropology, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; Laurel E Bellante, Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Geography, Development, and Environment, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

The Future of Food and Social Justice foregrounds youth storytelling to advance a more equitable, socially and racially just vision for the future of food. Using feminist and participatory methods to engage structurally marginalized youth in southern Arizona, this project will enrich UA’s HSI designation, generate a template for community engagement of interest and potential benefit to other MSIs, and also make important contributions to scholarship advancing the struggles of QT BIPOC. We aim to engage and train at least 30 youth from structurally marginalized backgrounds from across southern Arizona in the project activities and to solicit at least 15 stories on the future of food and social justice in the form of: a short story, essay or statement; audio or video recordings; and brief interviews. Results of the project will be disseminated through digital newsletters, social media outlets, op-eds (locally and nationally), and peer-reviewed publications, while making important contributions to theory on archival activism and decolonial knowledge production as well as interventions to right to food and food studies. Participants of the project will also play an active role in archiving and sharing stories back with their communities.

Applicant(s)

Jeremy Garcia, Associate Professor; Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies, College of Education, Thomas E. Sheridan, Professor, Anthropology, College of Social & Behavioral Sciences

In Partnership with 

Stewart Koyiyumptewa, Director 

Hopi Cultural Preservation Office (HCPO) 

Abstract

As a land-grant institution built on Tohono O’odham’s ancestral lands, this project exemplifies pathways for the UArizona to partner with Native Nations and Indigenous educators to engage in truth-telling histories in education. This critical Indigenous qualitative research project is to analyze the process of developing curriculum that privileges Hopi perspectives on the history of Hopi and Spanish colonialism. The significance of this project honors the goals of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office for Hopi youth to develop a critical Indigenous consciousness of their history through curriculum and pedagogy. Often, the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives on the history of colonization is glossed over or simply omitted from the educational textbooks and learning opportunities in schools. The impact of this work contributes directly to: (1) the first Hopi and Spanish History K-12 curriculum; (2) opportunities for Hopi educators to enact self-determination and intellectual sovereignty; and (3) research and scholarship that contributes to critical Indigenous curriculum studies. Additional outcomes contribute to the HSI goals to include diverse perspectives, scholarship, and service that builds capacity for others to be in solidarity with Indigenous communities by understanding the dehumanizing impacts that Spanish colonialism had on Indigenous peoples across the southwest region in which UArizona resides.

Applicant(s)

Mauricio Ibañez-Mejia, Assistant Professor, Geosciences, College of Science; Albert Barberán, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences;  Carmen King de Ramírez, Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese, College of Humanities

Abstract

We propose to develop a pilot program that uses Spanish language, along with the landscapes, ecosystems and culture of the Southwest, as vehicles to enhance the diversity and inclusion of Hispanics in STEM. We will develop an 8-week long afterschool program for TUSD juniors and seniors, consisting of a series of engaging teaching modules focusing on the geological, ecological and cultural history of the Southwest. Each of these in-classroom modules, spanning two weeks in duration, will culminate with an outdoor experience to cement knowledge and to develop a sense of connection with nature. The last two weeks of the program will be devoted to student-led capstone projects supervised by the PIs. Activities will be conducted in person and in Spanish at a high school chosen in consultation with our TUSD partners. In order to enhance access to the materials and to reach a wider student population, our activities will be documented and made available on-line through a website we will develop. The central objective of this project is to provide Hispanic students with the confidence and sense of belonging needed for pursuing careers in Science, convincing them it is possible to be successful in STEM having English as second language.

Applicant(s)

Sung Eun Jung, Assistant Professor of Practice, Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies, College of Education

Abstract

The proposed project aims to 1) implement a literacy-rich robotics education program for Latinx children (aged 5 to 8) in collaboration with the John Valenzuela Youth Center in South Tucson and 2) conduct scholarly research about Latinx children’s funds of knowledge in STEM learning and culturally responsive STEM pedagogy for early childhood teachers. As a strength-based approach, this project values Latinx students’ cultural, social, and linguistic backgrounds as unique assets and resources in designing and implementing the robotics curriculum. This project will directly impact Latinx English-language learners (ELLs) from low-SES families in South Tucson by ensuring their early entry into STEM through interactive robotics practices. This project will invite UA undergraduate students in the early childhood education program to serve as tutors. This project will train preservice early childhood teachers in culturally relevant STEM teaching. At the theoretical level, this project will broaden our understanding of funds of knowledge that young children bring into STEM learning and suggest implications for culturally responsive STEM pedagogy in the field of early childhood education.

Applicant(s)

Aminata Kilungo, Assistant Professor of Practice, Community, Environment & Policy, Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, Mónica Ramírez-Andreotta, Associate Professor, Environmental Science, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences

Abstract

This seed grant proposal aims to improve our understanding of potential exposures to Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a carcinogenic microorganism associated with gastric cancer, and arsenic, associated with diabetes and obesity, to reduce health disparities in the Arizona-Mexico border communities. The specific objectives of this work are to; 1) Identify potential environmental sources of H. pylori and arsenic in surface and private well water sources that vulnerable populations are reliant upon in the Arizona-Sonora Border region; 2) improve our understanding of the prevalence of these environmental sources and prevalence of distal gastric cancer, diabetes and obesity in Arizona; and 3) share all information collected with participating families to increase environmental health literacy. Outcomes of this project will; 1) inform science, policymakers, and the community on needed interventions to improve water quality; 2) reduce risks associated with the development of gastric cancer, diabetes, and obesity; and 3) build community resilience by improving environmental health literacy so the communities can better advocate for their health.

Applicant(s)

Jenny J Lee, Professor, Educational Policy Studies & Practice, College of Education;  Jameson David (JD) Lopez, Assistant Professor, Educational Policy Studies & Practice, College of Education; Santiago Castiello Gutiérrez, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Educational Policy Studies & Practice, College of Education; Amanda Cheromiah, Director, Native SOAR

In Partnership with

Native SOAR

Universidad ITESO in Guadalajara, Jalisco

Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC)

Abstract

This internationally collaborative action-research project seeks to expand the University of Arizona’s (UA) Hispanic Service Institution (HSI) status across the US-México border and recenter its knowledge and outreach by connecting Indigenous communities internationally. US higher education has long suppressed Indigenous communities’ systems of knowledge, which are grounded in interconnected relationships with their ancestral territories, other living entities, and the world around them (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Dozier Enos, 2017; Nelson & Youngbull, 2015). Creating a community of interest where Indigenous educators and thought leaders from different regions can share their knowledge provides a unique opportunity for courageous innovation as well as further supporting culturally relevant practices acquired over millennia. Therefore, this project looks to bring together two institutions that are attempting to address historic wrongs that have marginalized Indigenous students from their community. An especially unique feature of this work will be to incorporate digital technology as both a medium for storytelling and increasing awareness towards positive change.

Applicant(s)

Shefali Milczarek-Desai, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law & Director, Workers' Rights Clinic, James E. Rogers College of Law; Tara Sklar, Professor of Health Law & Director, Health Law & Policy Program, James. E. Rogers College of Law

Abstract

The twin pandemics of 2020 – COVID-19 and racial injustice – have exacerbated the inequities experienced by BIPOC workers. Women working as long-term care aides, who overwhelmingly are immigrants, Latinx, and/or BIPOC, disproportionally have been affected by hazardous working conditions serving to increase their existing vulnerabilities. The long-term care direct care workforce is predominately composed of these women, yet their perspectives are missing in the legal literature and national conversation surrounding essential workers’ rights, such as paid sick leave and workplace safety.

Applicant(s)

Bo Sun, Research Assistant Professor, Pharmacology & Toxicology, College of Pharmacy

Abstract

The incidence and death rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) are the highest in African Americans and Alaska Natives comparing to other racial groups, and they are less likely to receive early diagnosis of CRC and high-quality care. Current surgery, chemo- and radiotherapy have caused serious adverse side effects in CRC patients, and many of them also failed to respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) therapy. Therefore, I propose to improve the medical care of Black and Indigenous communities suffering CRC by providing an innovative cancer vaccine. The objective of my research is to develop nanoparticle-based vaccines to simultaneously deliver tumor antigens and dual immune adjuvants for immunotherapy of CRC. We will test whether the proposed vaccine loaded with CRC-derived antigens can inhibit the tumor growth more effectively in preclinical CRC model, comparing to the mix of soluble tumor antigens and adjuvants. The proposed bi-adjuvant nanovaccines are expected to have high efficacy and complement current immunotherapy since the majority of CRC patients do not respond to ICI alone. I believe that the outcomes of this project will advance biomedical research that is beneficial for BIPOC communities and enrich UA’s designation as an HSI.